


until he put me in my place

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - High School, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, Strained Friendships, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-18 23:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9406844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: he’s one of dave’s friends, so you expect him to be a shitty guy. most of dave’s friends don’t fall in with the group and dave doesn’t care enough about them to stick around most of the time, so they usually peel off in due time. but john is different. he is strange.





	

**Author's Note:**

> haha. i should be updating my fics.  
> [check my blog out too pls i beg for followers.](http://luciferslittlekitten.tumblr.com/)

john shows up sometime in the spring of ninth grade, not long after sollux had his big stunt that you guys didn’t talk about anymore.

he’s one of dave’s friends, so you expect him to be a shitty guy. most of dave’s friends don’t fall in with the group and dave doesn’t care enough to stick around most the time, so they usually peel off in due time. but john is different. he is strange.

 _you are so cool, karkat!_ you remember him beaming with his eyes alight and you’d blinked in confusion at him. dave cleared his throat to remind john of his presence because he was irrevocably cooler, but john just grabbed your hand and shook it with all his heart and then spun on sollux and stuck out his hand and waited for sollux to shake it. which he did not. he just stared evenly at john until he dropped his hand with a little puff of breath and then he grinned again and said, _i’ve been wanting to meet you since forever! dave talks a lot of shit, but that’s just how best friends are, right? you guys seem great._

then he’d proceeded to tell you all about the events of his week, including his first ever ( _ever!_ ) sexual encounter with dave and when he started rambling about that he realized he was being a little too descriptive and his face went a shade of pink and sollux was staring at john like he’d committed an atrocity against man or done the deeds of god. you could never tell with sollux.

when you gave him a ride in your van on that first day, he made it a mission to get in as much conversation with sollux as possible, who made it _his_ mission to avoid talking to john entirely. neither of them was going to call uncle and the entire ride was full of one-sided conversation.

you still don’t know why he hangs out with you guy or why he thinks you’re cool. he’s a rich kid who is second-in-line heir to the entire betty crocker baking company and he’s all smiles and kindness and cute shit like rainbows and butterflies. you hardly believe a teenage boy of his age and his stature would be a genuinely good person. but he’s just a nice dude. you didn’t know why he’s content to hang out with a bunch of stoners, but he is, so you just add his address to the docket of homes to drop by and pick people up from in the morning. it feels almost natural having him around, like you and dave and sollux are all the straight men and he’s your foil. even if his optimism got annoying and you could tell sollux got a little pissy at some of his bubbliness.

he made all of you watch shitty, awful movies which dave and sollux admitted were much worse than the rom-coms you enjoyed. every friday, he baked you guys batches of cupcakes with his sister because if there are anything stoners love more than cupcakes (besides hot cheetos and oatmeal cream pies), you haven’t heard of it. and they were good ass cupcakes.

part of you wondered if dave had created john in a lab. he was almost inhuman. inhumanly nice, inhumanly rich, inhumanly gorgeous, _inhumanly flexible if you know what i mean,_ dave had told you in the past with which made you give him a long look that you hoped conveyed you evaluating why you were even friends with him.

he was irrefutably part of the group with no possible way for him to backtrack. so once he was settled, in you thought that when you introduced terezi to the group like dave had with john it would go over easy because you fucking adored terezi. she was like john in her quirkiness though she felt so much more real than he did, she felt like an actual fucking person and not like a brought-to-life doll.

she dressed like a seven year old had been given unauthorized access to the entirety of the gap, hot topic, and the american eagle clearance section. she could laugh for upwards of five minutes at one of your mistakes or bad jokes. she kissed with too much tongue and your teeth gnashed together and you felt like she was going to chew your face off and, god, did you ever love her. you love her and her stupid paintings and her dumb glasses. and you prayed your friends would too.

it did not go over easy.

terezi and john hated each other, first of all, and terezi was always picking fights that she swore up and down she never started. of course, you wanted to believe her, but how could you? dave was always taking john’s side too, and sollux was painfully neutral, so they were really drawing a rift between you and one of your best friends. john would try and be nice, but she would go at him like he was intentionally targeting her for one reason or another. dave told you to control your girlfriend on more than one occasion and you wouldn’t deny that you felt a little bad for john and a little upset with terezi, but after a while she just let whatever trouble she had with john go and the two of them fell into a mutual-hatred sort of situation where john tried to mend things but it never quite worked.

terezi was the only one of you who scarcely smoked. you didn’t know why that was, but she didn’t, and you wouldn’t ever force her into it because shit like that doesn’t happen in real life and you’re paying for the weed anyways so more power to you. so sometimes you’d drop her off before any of you would and after the kiss goodbye you’d drive off and park in the lot of that abandoned k-mart and hang out like a bunch of fucking losers. tonight was one of those nights, and you and dave had been exceptionally pissy at each other all day, so you were hoping when you walked terezi up to her door and gave her a quick kiss that turned very sloppy and intense very quick, then hopped back into the van, it would be resolved.

it was, mostly, but dave was still bitter.

sollux was talking about something on the way there. it was probably a game or something. john was chatting with him enthusiastically, like normal, and when john lit up, shit was normal. until it wasn’t.

you’d just said, somewhat defensively, to a teasing dave, _terezi’s kinda violent about kissing, okay?_

and john had giggled and said, _aww, you’re cute, karkat._

and then he took took a handful of the funyuns from sollux’s bag of them and ate, seemingly oblivious to the fact the atmosphere of the van had turned ice cold, and the fact that the resounding tension had basically broken the butterknife. it only got worse when john popped the last funyun in his mouth and laid his head on your shoulder.

you’d known for a while that dave and john weren’t just friends, sure, and you’d known for a while john tended to get a little touchy when he was high, sure, and you’d known that dave was possessive, sure, but you weren’t doing anything wrong.

you gave dave a weary look. he was staring at you evenly through his shades, even though you knew he was pissed. you coughed and wiggled your shoulder so that john’s head would slip off it, but he just scooted himself closer to you and you felt your ears growing red, you felt dave’s eyes on you, you heard sollux’s rapid munching of funyuns as he avidly tried to avoid the brewing argument at hand.

that night, dave took john home with him. you didn’t know if that was a show of something to you even though you hadn’t expressly asked john to do any of that cuddly shit. sollux rode in the passenger seat as you bought the both of you burger king and he said, _john’s weird when he’s high. dave should know that shit wasn’t even your fault._

you had shrugged. _doesn’t matter. you know his protective ass is going to blame me anyways._

 _world ends,_ sollux muses, _to dave, john most affected._

you snort and pull up to the next window, telling the attendant you want a lot, and you mean a lot, of ketchup. she nods with a weird glance at you. sollux waves.

you sigh as she turns her back to fetch your food and condiments. _i just feel like dave’s pulling a bunch of bullshit on us. am i like that with terezi?_

sollux shakes his head. _nah. i think dave just has issues with asserting his dominance and john’s really close with everyone. it’s not really john’s fault that’s his nature, though, you know? it’s just dave being protective._

 _you think it’s a... y'know thing?_ you ask him in a murmur because that’s one of the things you’re not supposed to talk about.

he hesitates. _yeah,_ he finally says, _probably is._

the clerk returns with your food and you drive off, already having paid at the last window. sollux digs through the bag and sighs. _they forgot my fries._

 _have mine,_ you tell him and so he shrugs and does. you’re not half as hungry as you remember being.

dave seems clingier and clingier by the day and john doesn’t seem to notice a thing. he’s still all wide-eyed gasps and smiles and innocence and dave watched over him like he’s a hawk fixing to snatch up a rabbit. john does a few more things like the cuddling thing that get dave pissy, but john isn’t to blame and he always apologizes when he feels like he’s done something wrong.

he’s said to both of you he doesn’t want to come between your friendship, he _wants to be in the friendship!_ and that he’s sorry for the bad things dave does sometimes. it’s not like you and sollux are actually mad at john, so you just tell him it’s fine and he’ll smile and thank you and move on until dave’s next clingy act and he’ll do it all over again. you and sollux, oftentimes terezi too, start going on more midnight burger king runs without dave. sometimes, you feel like the three of you are that close to breaking into one of your own, separate friendships, without dave and his boyfriend, but whenever you consider this dave seems to call you and says he’s _sorry, man, i just get… like that. you know? and i don’t even mean to. but john is real important to me and sometimes i just get like that._ and you believe him because you know this is probably just a repercussion of the thing you’re not supposed to talk about.

john and dave are not bad people, dave is just in a very protective spot. you can sympathize with that, you guess, you’re a caring but not overbearing boyfriend. sollux says that he’s kind of just being a dickwad all-in-all and he probably didn't want to break off your friendship so he could keep hitching rides and getting high on your shit, but you had more faith in dave than that. so, soon, you stopped talking about dave altogether in your midnight burger king runs. and then dave stopped coming on the runs altogether. and then dave stopped calling you every night, then stopped calling you every two days, stopped calling you every week, stop calling you as a whole. you lost contact with him and john along with him. you guessed friendships could just fall apart, but it hurt, because he still lived in the apartment at the other end of the hall. and you hardly saw him.

one day, a couple weeks after zero contact and sollux and terezi had completely given up on rekindling any friendship with john or dave, you swallowed your pride and knocked on his door. it drew open. john was there.

he was wearing one of dave’s shirts and he stared at you evenly, blinking as if he were not impressed. his mouth was a flat line. one of his eyebrows raised. _what?_

you stared at him for a moment then asked, _can i talk to dave? he hasn’t been answering the phone._

 _there’s a reason for that,_ john tells you and he doesn’t even look like john. something’s off. maybe it’s his non existent smile or the neutrality on his face or the way he seems almost taller now

 _and that is?_ you ask, starting to get a little fed up with this entire damn thing. you just want to see your best friend.

_because he’s my boyfriend._

_yeah, well, he’s my best fucking friend and i wanna fucking see him._

_well,_ he says, _that's just too bad._

_i'm not leaving until i see him._

john huffs, and you can see his face flash for a moment so you know he's torn between keeping the straight look or giving you puppy eyes. he must realize puppy eyes will do nothing for either of you at this point, so he just says,  _no. go home, karkat._

_like fuck i'm going home! he's my best friend, crocker, and you don't have a single goddamned right to refuse me access to his apartment. bring him out here if he doesn't want to see me, let me tell him myself._

_i have worked very hard to have him all to my own and i will not let you take him away from me!_

you give john a long look and then ask, sarcasm and indignation trickling down your tone, _pardon?_

 _you’re going to distract him!_ john says this with such wicked conviction that it makes you lean back a little, _he doesn’t need you all to be bad influences on him!_

_so you’re going to, what, lock him away like a princess in a tower?_

_if i have to._

you almost laugh. _and what if i tell anyone about your crazy ass?_

_who’s gonna believe you?_

you don’t even have time to answer him.

his face contorts into a doe-eyed expression, lip bitten under his front teeth, a blush forming on his cheeks almost as if on cue, and he says, _you are so cool, karkat!_

the little cunt.

_and, gosh, do you know how desperate you’ll look if you try to convince dave that i’m the bad guy here? do you know how awful dave can get when i’m not in control? do you know how bad he gets when i’m not here to calm him down?_

_sollux will believe me. terezi, too._

_and what do they matter?_ he asks, still smiling, still talking in that sickeningly sweet tone, _it won’t bring your best friend in the entire world back, silly._

you stare at him and you hate it because he’s right. he’s got dave wrapped around his little fucking finger and none of you had ever seen it happening. he smiles even bigger when he realizes you’ve realized it, too.

then he steps back, shoots you one last faux-innocence look, and slams the door in your face.


End file.
